The striking juxtaposition of the preternaturally perfect Angelina Jolie, waifish and wispy in a ghostly gown, and the scrappy Pakistani schoolgirl Malala, her face cruelly misshapen by the effects of a Taliban bullet to the head, captures the confluence of feminine power assembled here to "lean on" the world to save women and girls.

CAMDEN, S.C. -- It isn't often that one gets to hear both the strains of "Dixie" and an African drum concert in the same public square. Nor, usually, are statue unveilings the riveting stuff of storytelling.

That is, unless one happens to be in the oldest inland city, population 7,000, of one of the oddest little states in a nation of oddness.

NEW YORK -- The recent rape conviction of two teenagers, one of whom also distributed a photo and sent cruel text messages about their victim, has captured the "bystander effect" in graphic and nauseating detail.

WASHINGTON -- We may never know exactly what happened in Benghazi the night Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed, but it's becoming increasingly clear that our response was short of optimum.